Oskar Blues' CHUBurger to be part of part of Coors Field upgrades

Longmont-based brewery lands space on new rooftop deck

By Tony Kindelspire Longmont Times-Call

Posted:
10/09/2013 02:29:14 PM MDT

Updated:
10/09/2013 07:43:20 PM MDT

Head chef Bart Dickerson brings out a to-go order for a customer at CHUBurger in Longmont Wednesday. A CHUBurger will open next year on the new rooftop deck being built at Coors Field. (Matthew Jonas/Times-Call)

LONGMONT -- Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, will be undergoing a redesign and renovation of its upper-right field seating area and concourse this offseason, and the additions will include a new rooftop deck and a CHUBurger restaurant.

Oskar Blues opened its original CHUBurger at 1225 Ken Pratt Boulevard in Longmont in April. The concept spun out of the signature sandwich, the CHUBurger, that originated with Oskar Blues' food truck, the Bonewagon. The burger concept was turned into what the brewery calls its "sustainable farm-to-beer-to-table lifecycle" by Oskar Blues' executive chef Jason Rogers and general manager Anita Gray. The restaurant's burgers use beef from Oskar Blues' Hops & Heifers farm, and along with other sandwiches and side dishes CHUBurger features a variety of craft beers on tap.

Bartender Ashley Roueche pours an Oskar Blues beer for a customer on Wednesday at CHUBurger in Longmont. Oskar Blues will open a second location in 2014: on the new rooftop deck being built at Coors Field.
(Matthew Jonas/Times-Call)

"Coors Field contacted us and they pitched us this idea of the world's largest rooftop patio, and we thought maybe this is a little bit out of our league but we thought, let's go down and see what they have to say," said Dale Katechis, Oskar Blues' founder.

According to a Coors Field news release, the CHUBurger will feature a "display kitchen," and Katechis said the restaurant would be mostly open-air.

An Oskar Blues employee will be on hand to manage the day-to-day operations, he said, otherwise it will be Aramark employees -- the company with exclusive food and beverage rights for the ballpark -- staffing the place.

But his manager's role will be critical, Katechis said, to make sure it maintains the "craft casual" feel of the original CHUBurger.

"Craft casual" is a play on the phrase "fast casual," a restaurant term for food that's a step above fast food in quality but is served quickly. It's been the fastest-growing restaurant style for several years.

Katechis said the plan all along had been to have more than CHUBurger. The restaurant is part of the vertical integration of his businesses, he said: Spent grain used to brew beer is fed to his cattle, and the cattle are fed to customers at his restaurants. The farm even grows some of the hops used in the brewing process.

"Our to plan is to grow the farm and our beer business right along with it," Katechis said.

Oskar Blues has about 30 head of cattle on its farm just west of Longmont and another 80 on a neighboring farm. Katechis also contracted with Weaver Ranch outside Fort Collins to raise more, he said. He's already shipping mash up there to feed the cows.

When Colorado Rockies' officials contacted him about six months ago, he was a little unsure what to make of the idea because "corporate sponsorships aren't really our bag," Katechis said. But he is a huge baseball fan, and realized the exposure the deal would bring to CHUBurger.

He said he discovered Rockies officials to be "a group of down-to-Earth guys and gals that want to build a relationship for the good of the partnership and for the right reasons."

The Coors Field deal may not even be the highest-profile deal the brewery has ever struck. It won a contest to get its beers on Frontier Airlines, and it became the first craft brewer to develop an affiliation with NASCAR.

"Some of these opportunities that seem to be big-ticket items, they kind of used to scare me, but you get in meetings with these folks and you realize they're real people," Katechis said.

The rooftop deck will feature two levels with more than 38,000 square feet and panoramic views of the Lower Downtown neighborhood and beyond, as well as the Continental Divide to the west.

It also will feature "5280 Craft Bar," a bar "52 feet and 80 inches long with 52 beer taps," and the "VIP Cabana Terrace," described in a statement from Coors Field as "an urban garden setting that will include a fireplace, rooftop lights, casual furniture and pregame entertainment."

The project was designed by Populous -- the original architect of Coors Field -- with help from Mortenson Construction, one of the original contractors on the ballpark at 20th and Blake streets in Denver, and Aramark.

Oskar Blues' newest venture, CyclHOPS Bike CAN-tina, is scheduled to open at 600 S. Airport Road, in the Meadow View Shopping Center at Airport and Nelson roads, before the end of the year. The company has described it as a "quick full-service taco and tequila eatery" that also will be a full-service bike shop and will be the official retail home of REEB, the company's line of bikes.

Oskar Blues' founder Dale Katechis poses in the brewery's original location in Lyons in this 2012 photo. He moved the company's "anti-corporate" headquarters to Longmont in 2008.
(Lewis Geyer/Times-Call file )